


Polyhymnia

by metu



Category: Inazuma Eleven, Inazuma Eleven GO
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Conservatory AU, M/M, Not Beta Read, Pianist!Shindou, Tchaikovsky's ghost possessed me and I wrote this, as usual, mentions of mental health issues, minor kyouten, the inherent gayness of composing music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27107056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metu/pseuds/metu
Summary: Takuto navigates the highs and lows of attempting to write the single, most important piece of music of his life, while trying not to drown. Out of what he assumes is the Universe's desperate last attempt to make him understand something, he meets Ibuki Munemasa. It's a Romantic melodrama, really.
Relationships: Ibuki Munemasa/Shindou Takuto
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	Polyhymnia

**Author's Note:**

> Before you read this, I want to say a few things:  
> 1, maybe the most important: there are some careless remarks about depression and suicide, they're not serious and if any of you knows what kind of environment conservatories and choreutic schools are you won't find them too weird, but they're still there, if you need me to point them out I will gladly do so.  
> 2, this is partially based on my seven year experience inside a conservatory in a very small Italian town, a lot of things here are exaggerated because I like to be dramatic but they're not far from the truth, I still loved it to bits.  
> 3, it's pure self indulgence, at one point I decided I didn't care for consistency and I just wrote what I wanted, without considering if it made sense or not, sorry about that.
> 
> Hope you'll like it!

"You’ll need a new, self-composed piece to be able to pass the selection, mister Shindou, no exceptions. That’s all there is to it," the conservatory rector says, not even sparing a glance at him from over the papers on his desk. 

Takuto knew that, "Alright, thank you," is all he can spit out before bowing and taking his leave. He closes the studio doors with composed panic, looks at the poor souls waiting to be called inside and throws a prayer to the sky, hoping there isn’t any sprouting talent hidden between them; Takuto can recognize and appreciate natural inclination when he hears it, that doesn’t mean he’s not terribly jealous of the place he holds inside the orchestra. For now at least. 

He walks in silence through the cold corridors, busts of dead composers overlooking students with their grave scowls and dusty brows, Takuto memorised the shapes of their profiles long ago still, they never fail to anger and intimidate him at the same time.

He rubs his thumb and middle finger together, the fingertips are cold, soft, they look too tiny to be able to play a full octave and yet, the third, the fourth, the fifth they all reach the keys like they’re hanging from a rope to dear life. Takuto stuffs them inside the pockets of his light coat, toys with the telephone left on mute and wonders if calling Ranmaru will be of any comfort; they’re still walking on eggshells around each other, even if it’s been months and their friendship was greater than anything else. 

It was easy, at first, both in the same solfeggio class. Ranmaru looked like a rose bud in the middle of an unkempt garden full of nettles and Takuto likes to think they were destined to become friends, even for just the two hours spent replicating the habitual movements of their teacher. Quick glances across the piano turned into longing gazes while Takuto played the accompaniment to Ranmaru’s flute, and three days later they were making out hidden by the back panels of the orchestra pit like any sixteen year old. It was probably doomed from the start. Four years later, all they have laid out in the space left is a weird sort of love and respectful rivalry.

Takuto feels terribly selfish, though, so he dials the number.

"Hello? Takuto?" Ranmaru picks up after the third ring, his voice is subdued. He probably was somewhere with Kariya, they’ve been spending so much time together, Shidou has the suspicion the break up was going to be inevitable for more than one reason. He would be jealous of that, too, except that Kariya is insufferable and Takuto really doesn’t know how Kirino endures more than thirty minutes in his presence. 

"Is everything alright?" Ranmaru continues when he doesn’t answer. 

_Is it?_ , he thinks, he wants to vent and scream like a child, make a scene in the middle of the corridor where no one but dead marble people will be able to see, Ranmaru is too kind to go against him when he gets in these moods.

"Yeah," he lies, "I just wanted to know if you wanted to grab dinner with me."

He hears a bit of a ruckus in the background, a familiar voice, Kariya’s complacent mug taking shape next to Ranmaru shoulders. He’s only one year younger than them, came from a choreutic school Takuto knows to be one of the strictest in the country, and yet he likes to act like a child. 

Takuto’s brain somersaults towards his lungs. 

"Ah, sorry, I can’t today, I have band practice until nine," Takuto is also aware of this fact, they memorised each other’s schedule the first year and it hasn’t changed since; he keeps on walking until he reaches the auditorium and stops there, inlaid doors and the somber atmosphere of a building both feared and loved occupying the spot where mandible meets ear. 

"You’re right, I forgot," it probably sounds like one of the trumpets of the apocalypse to Ranmaru, since Takuto only forgets where he put the car keys, and nothing else, "I’ll— it’s nothing, don’t worry about it."

"You sure? Are you at the conservatory? I can—

"No, no. Don’t worry. Say hi to Masaki for me," he hangs up before Ranmaru can say something back and opens the door to the room. 

It’s opulent, an old and tired place with tall windows covered by brocade curtains and enough space to ingurgitate all the conservatory students, Takuto feels infinitesimal inside, as big as the iotas of dusts laying atop the mahogany display cases full of musical relics. He gulps down what seems like months old saliva, the air smells stale and the sound his shoes make tears down the sacred stillness of the room. 

He walks down, all the way to the centre and then to the left, chairs and tables neatly arranged leaving him in the vacant space of a closed door. He opens it, the inside is considerably smaller, darker, bitter. In the middle, the grand piano.

Takuto sits down, putting the still cold fingers over the first key becomes as natural as breathing: alla breve, five flats, the first quarter note, the musical ligatures, Takuto knows this piece like he was born just to play it, has practiced it until his hands bled dry and he couldn’t feel his spine, musical scores engraved on the bones of his rib, the thorax holding him up nothing but the simple symphonic system on which he based his whole life. 

He inhales sharply, spine bent, arms angled, foot on the pedal and repeats the same theme until even the walls collapse under the weight of the umpteenth hundred twenty-eight note. His eyes hurt, the low light’s fault and his lungs contract worryingly once he shifts over the chair. His phone tells him it’s late, enough for most of the students and personnel to have left, he repeats the first three bars and when he inevitably misses the key he gets the urge to snap the piano cover over his fingers, giving him a good enough reason to be this much of a failure. All he does is close his right hand into a fist, the left grabbing his pants and the frustration building up bursting into a guttural scream.

"Woah," a voice interrupts him, he scrambles upright and as he turns he sees another man standing in front of the entrance to the room, oversized black tee and cuffed jeans. He has white dyed hair, held back by a headband, so pale it reflects under the lamps, and a scowl on his sharp face. 

He’s so tall the door frame almost hits him on the forehead.

"You done?" the stranger gruffs out, crossed arms and voice deep. 

Takuto raises his eyebrows.

"I said," he punctuates the sentence by nodding rudely towards the piano, "Are you done? I need to clean in here, it smells like a fucking burial chamber."

"I’m sorry?"

"Apology accepted," Takuto dislikes this man already, "now get out, they already pay me like shit I don’t have time to argue with you."

Takuto splutters, caught by surprise and the man in front of him, no name tag or uniform for all that matters, lifts one finger to point at the cleaning trolley behind him, so he guesses he wasn’t lying on that, at least. He turns up his nose, closes the piano and searches for the velvet cover to put over it.

"I can do that, you know," the man says, still not moving from the entrance. Takuto, out of spite, slows his movements down.

"As if I’d let you touch this," he mutters but the stranger, apparently, hears that and scoffs.

"I won’t break your stupid piano, if that’s what you’re worried about."

"I thought you didn’t have enough time to argue with me," Takuto retorts, patting the cloth and lifting his eyes. He needs to cut his fringe. The satisfaction of seeing the stranger with the white hair blink in surprise is fleeting.

"Whatever, now that you’re done, scram." 

Takuto does just that. 

  
  


* * *

Takuto is not a stranger to the art of composing music, he’s been doing that ever since he learnt how to count to ten. His parents were overjoyed to know their only child was a musical prodigy, he became their little pet project, the exposition animal to show their high-ranking friends, cries of how good their Takuto was, only seven and already playing.

He doesn’t hold much reproach for them, at the end of the day he’s thankful being a pianist is contemplated as one of the hobbies rich people consider adequate enough to be pursued and his parents were very clear on that front: the moment Takuto and his piano stopped being a source of recognition and pride, the money would be spent on something else. 

Takuto, on the other hand, made an oath on his part too, at thirteen in front of the mirror in the backstage dressing room: the moment his fingers ceased to move on the black and white, avory ladder was the instant he died. 

Now, endless pencil scrabbles and numerous blank papers thrown haphazardly across his bedroom, he feels like this, right here, is enough of a suffering to be considered death. His back hurts and his hair is in his face, if he were to look himself in the mirror he would see blood-shot eyes and dry lips, he takes the thyme cream and slathers a good amount over the back of his hands, rubs in the crevices with method, takes good care of his knuckles and over his cuticles until the smell of thyme percolates so much inside his skin he doesn’t breathe anything else. 

Aria and Lute are cuddled on his bed, they sleep in the sunlit spot next to each other and Takuto smiles gently before closing his copybook and shutting his eyes for five seconds, so hard that once he reopens them his sight is infested by grey dots that look like television static. Takuto gets up, grabs a coat and house keys and walks away from his apartment, he needs a change of scenery, possibly a new brain altogether, so many scales, quavers overlapping crotches in a flurry of cacophonies he’d rather open his head over a rock than try to write down. 

He realises grabbing the coat was a mistake because the temperature outside is considerably warmer than it was inside his three-room apartment but he’s passed the point where turning around and going back home would mean hiding himself under the bed, linen covers, so he just walks until he finds a bench under a tree, a good place as any to have a minor breakdown over his inability to make sense of the only thing that has always been there for him, the most trusted and known of his friends. 

Takuto sits down, bites his tongue and he wishes he was a better man because all he wants to do is scream at someone until his voice is hoarse and his eardrums explode. He figures Tenma would be up for that, but whenever they argue about music it always ends up with Takuto having to reconsider his life choices and he’s already halfway there. 

"Is this what accomplished musicians do in their free time?" 

Takuto raises his eyes until he sees familiar white hair and black headband, the ever present scowl and a basketball under one arm. He needs to be more cautious with what he wishes for, since the universe decided to give him a person to shout at.

Ibuki Munemasa, the name Takuto learnt after weeks of getting reprimanded for leaving flying papers and unattended instruments. They always bump into each other at the conservatory, mostly because he’s often late and Ibuki works the closing shift, they don’t really talk as much as throw jabs at each other until one of them relents and leaves the room, Takuto is proud to say that his winning streak remains unbroken and he’s always granted half an hour before he really needs to close the piano and go home. 

Kariya told him, over dinner at Ranmaru’s, that he was a year his senior at the choreutic school and then, no one really knows why, one day he simply disappeared. Takuto pretends the interest isn’t boiling the insides of his intestines. 

"I’m not a musician," he says, _and I’m hardly accomplished_ he finishes, but he won’t tell Ibuki that.

He feels stuffed with his coat and the sight of Ibuki’s bare shoulders in his white tank top doesn’t help, he is back in middle school when changing rooms were a threat to his sanity and his newly found secret.

There is something awfully annoying about Ibuki that simply doesn’t set right within Takuto’s universe of well known and practiced steps, he constantly challenges him and readily headbutts the idea of respect without any single remorse.

He told Ranmaru he was the most annoying person on the planet, officially dethroning Kariya, and the other reminded him that he also thought of Tenma that way; Takuto wanted to argue that he thought Tenma was annoying merely because he’s exceedingly optimistic and asinine in his hopes and dreams about conservatory life.

Ranmaru didn’t seem convinced, but Takuto’s sedimented in the way he rarely changes his opinion about anyone, ever. Tenma’s just the exception that justifies the postulate.

Ibuki is still scrutinising him, head cocked and hips stlanted. He shoves down the thought of Ibuki, sweat and muscles and stupid dyed hair, turns his head towards the sky. It barely feels like June. 

"Whatever—

Takuto is mildly irritated by the sweltering heat inside his coat, by the man standing in front of him with no specific reason but to torment him personally and he’s compelled to get up and leave immediately, he thinks he prefers going insane inside his apartment than willingly submit himself to the calvary that is Ibuki’s harshness. 

"Did you need anything?" Takuto interrupts.

Ibuki raises one darker eyebrow, you can’t really see them unless his hair is held back.

The man shrugs, Takuto thinks he’s blushing but he might be hallucinating because of the sweat sliding off his neck or the fact that he hasn’t slept in one week. 

"You rarely are at the conservatory anymore, I thought you finally collapsed and died."

He currently does not possess the mental and physical strength that the thought of Ibuki worried for him requires in order to be held inside his brain, which constantly feels like it’s melting any second he spends outside so he gets up, irritation and irrational anger steadfastly moving around until all he sees is Ibuki’s horrendous height. 

"If you’re worried about me, stop."

"I never said anything about being worried about _you_ ," Ibuki seethes and what even is that conversation, Takuto asks himself.

The temperature, the infernal reverberating of his words inside his cranium only foment Takuto to abruptly change direction and stumble away until Ibuki has to grab him by the elbow to avoid the promise of a broken nose. He straightens himself quickly and shoves Ibuki away.

"Man, why do you even have a fleece jacket," Ibuki mumbles and Takuto would offer a sour answer but he’s too preoccupied with the white spots taking up most of his vision to be bothered to argue, and then there's the fact that Ibuki’s undressing him, sharp movements that are far from gentle and considerate.

"If you want to kill yourself there are better ways."

"What the fuck," Takuto says when Ibuki hands him the coat and looks him in the eyes.

He’s starting to believe that being exasperating must be a requirement in order to be hired at the conservatory. 

"Masa, are you done?" comes a voice from behind, a man with spiky hair and blue streaks jogs where Ibuki and Takuto are, stopping just behind the taller one.

Takuto thinks he has oddly perceptive eyes but, again, he almost fainted.

"Yeah, yeah, don’t fuss," Ibuki turns, doesn’t look at Takuto.

He walks, talking with his friend, until his back, wide and other adjectives Takuto really doesn’t need to be thinking, disappears behind flocks of children and he cannot see him anymore, all he has left is the stupid coat hanging from his arm and the scarring sensation of another day wasted.

When he goes back to his apartment he sees another pair of shoes, Takuto recognises them so he isn’t worried, Tsurugi is sitting in his living room, book on Vivaldi opened and his viola case sitting neatly on the table next to the tiny armchair. 

"I let myself in," he says, turning a page, his legs are crossed and Takuto’s anger abates, he can already hear the delicate fingers plucking the strings.

"It’s fine, did you need anything?"

Takuto lets the incriminating coat fall down over the chair at the entrance, leaves the keys and crouches down to pat Lute on the head, Tsurugi closes the book and gets up, opens the case and looks at him with determined eyes.

"I think it’s you who needs something."

He takes in the composed stance, feet at twelve and three, Tsurugi has the skill to be first violin but simply doesn’t want to, he prefers sitting in the back, observing, considering that getting him to join the orchestra in the first place was an herculean task, Takuto doesn’t push him. 

Sitting at the piano, rubbing his fingertips together, he starts talking.

* * *

Tenma’s pigheaded, he doesn’t show it because he’s too cute and, generally, anyone who doesn’t really know him stops at his child-like appearance, but his head’s as hard as a block of cement and his hands work magic on the clarinet like he thinks he is the next Benny Goodman. Judging by the amount of scholarships constantly rolling in Takuto guesses he might as well be. 

"I think you should say sorry," he’s eating the last half of the ice cream cup Tsurugi bought for him, they’re disgustingly cute whenever they’re together. Takuto likes them both but he tries to avoid holding the candle as much as he can. The fact that he’s sitting across from those two right now only serves as a demonstration of his insanity. 

"For _what_ , exactly, I didn’t do anything," he folds a paper towel in half, and then in half again, till the edges are so frayed it looks like confetti. It’s technically only part of the truth.

"Then you should say thank you," Tenma licks the side of his mouth, stained with chocolate and Takuto glares at Tsurugi before he can do anything nauseating like cleaning him with his thumb. 

"He didn’t help me, he just likes to annoy me."

Tenma tries his best to get along with everyone he meets, people say it’s one of his best qualities but in a reality like a conservatory, a carnage that disguises itself under refined sentences and mild threats, good character is seldomly appreciated. Takuto knows this firsthand, has been inside this churning, moist meat grinder long enough to absorb the crude inevitability of the fact that nice words only work when you’re ready to cut the hands of the person who’s smiling at you. 

Tsurugi is also aware of that, so is Ranmaru, so is fucking Kariya who threatened to kill himself after he sprained his ankle two years ago, they were very close to tie him to his bed when he started howling like a cat, begging them to let him go to the studio. Tenma seems unperturbed by most of these antics, he's ready to point the line on the music sheet if you're lost and always carries spare reeds to share with his section. Takuto worries for him, once you understand that Tenma's like this not because of childish fantasies but because he's an actual musical genius who blindly believes in the power of good feelings you have already fallen inside the cozy hole that is the Matsukaze experience. 

"Didn't he cover you from getting caught by the guitar teacher when you were doing overtime?" 

Takuto will drown Tsurugi Kyousuke and his apathetic remarks. Tenma nods furiously, pointing a finger, "Right yeah! Kirino told me that," he falls back and Tsurugi immediately lifts one arm to bring him closer.

"He did _not_ , he was just— he was standing in front of me and that’s it."

" _Covering_ you—

"Please stop it, he didn’t do it on purpose. No need to say thanks or sorry, can we talk about something else?" Takuto concludes, he’s tracing the wood pattern of the table, a tense silence follows.

Tsurugi looks at him like he wants to say that all he talks about _is_ Ibuki, but instead he clears his throat, "Have you made any progress?"

Takuto shakes his head, crosses his arms. Tenma looks worried and he doesn’t want to further express himself on the subject, but the occasions in which his drought of ideas brought uneasiness to their interactions could be counted on one hand so he guesses he owes them the truth, at least. 

"I don’t know, it’s like all I do has already been done."

"Have you tried improvising?"

Takuto scoffs, "This isn’t _jazz_ , Matsukaze, I can’t just improvise a whole fucking six minute movement."

"Hey— Tsurugi starts, Tenma stops him.

"You’re worried about not making the cut, I get it, but you’re letting your feelings block you when they should be the first thing you think of when composing. Whether good or bad."

"I’m not _you_ , I don’t work like that!"

"I’m not saying you should start writing like I do," Tenma placates, "I’m telling you that the things that push people to write don't just come to you when you're either perfectly composed or absolutely insane, they can be simple emotions. And I _know_ it's not your style but just try it. If you think too hard about sounding magnified in front of a jury they’ll only recognize you as the student who knew what a glissando is."

Takuto inspires, something deep he’s been tucking away, and desperately wants to hate Tenma for always being right. Tsurugi looks proud, Tenma’s fingers tremble with agitation, like they always do whenever he’s ready to start a crusade about the importance of being true to yourself, of enjoying the act of creating before anything else. Takuto puts his hands in his hair and contemplates mass murder.

"When’s the deadline?" Tsurugi asks.

"Last week of September," he whispers behind the curtain of his hair. Four months aren't a lot to work with but Shindou has written longer pieces in less time, it's the tremendous amount of pressure adding to his pile of pre-existing conditions that shunts everything to the side and leaves Takuto with the bitter taste of vomit inside his mouth. 

"If you need—

"Yeah, I'll ask you. I'm sorry about— About that, by the way."

Tenma inclines his head to the side, cheek almost resting on Tsurugi's shoulder and they're so nice together, Takuto's heart lightens considerably just by watching their tender gentleness with each other. 

"It's fine, I'll go pay," he says, which means _I'll leave you with Kyousuke so you can talk about it_. 

"Masaki told me he works as a server during the weekends," Tsurugi casually throws the first rock.

Takuto lifts his eyes, "Why should I care?"

"Dunno," he says, and it's so strange hearing that coming from Tsurugi's composed mouth, he's starting to sound like Tenma, "It's Tobitaka's place, if you ever feel like dropping by. I know you're, whatever... but, coming from experience, a lot of things can be mistaken with exasperation."

Takuto wants to deck him in the face just for that remark, instead he only sighs and gives him a crucified look, then he glances at Tenma, who's making small talk with the cashier. They get up in unison.

"It's different, I barely know him."

"I barely knew Tenma, too."

"I _said_ —

"I heard you, but from what you've told me he seems to be interested in you, too."

"I haven't told you anything," Takuto stuffs his hands in his pockets after grabbing a lollipop from the counter, pays with the last coins he has floating around. 

"What Kirino told me, then," Tsurugi concedes, Tenma links their pinkies together once they're outside the ice cream parlor. 

"What did he tell you?"

"Just that Masaki doesn't know how washing machines work."

Tsurugi doesn't lie to Tenma, not even when they liked to pretend to be mortal enemies since they were out of the womb, so Takuto greatly appreciates the sharp turn the conversation takes. Takuto's aware this doesn't count as a lie, exactly, since any combination that includes Kariya in close proximity of an electrical appliance has the result of a flooded apartment or a straight black out, he’s grateful nonetheless, because Tenma starts compiling a great lists of incidents involving Kariya and a hairdryer. 

"I’ll go, now,” Takuto interrupts once they reach the conjunction of streets, Tenma and Tsurugi nod at him, tell him to call whenever he feels like it and Takuto waves his hand before walking all the way back to his house.

The first thing he does, after feeding the cats, is sitting on his piano bench, ticks the metronome and opens the booklet, starts with whatever bar of the fortuitous Scarlatti sonata his eyes lands on and begins with an arpeggio, half notes, he misses the time once and from there, leaping off of what Tenma said to him, throws himself headlong into a series of tiresome flourishments the whole plethora of dead baroque composers currently listening to him must be celebrating in the afterlife. 

He goes back, Scarlatti sonata, he gently pushes the keys, the harmony leeching on the melody, an emetic sound coming from the hammering going on inside the piano. Takuto hates so many things in these precise cracks of time, there is always too much and never enough, his fingers dip and rise, his knuckles detach and his spine bows like an ocean wave and yet. His hands fall between his legs, slightly aghast on the bench, Takuto turns his head to the side, a painting worth nothing hung on the wall.

The surface is sufficiently translucent under the last sun-light that he can see his reflection, albeit a bit distorted. French countryside, the cattails swirling in the wind and a dragonfly posed in the foreground, Takuto doesn’t know why he has that painting, it doesn’t hold any specific sentimental meaning but he’s never bothered to take it off, now he thinks he might destroy it just to stop the bile overflowing his pancreas. 

He stands up, opens the window in his bedroom and grabs the wallet laying on his bedside table, when he gets out of the house he curses Tsurugi and his obtusely sound advice.

* * *

  
  


Rairaiken is a ramen restaurant Kariya introduced them to, saying that the owner looked a bit fishy but always offered the side dishes if he thought the customers were depressed enough to need them. Considering that Kariya Masaki at fifteen was a bucket full of pessimistic distress they were getting free food almost every Friday night. Takuto is not a regular, he didn’t even know the restaurant had sufficient traction to need servers, but he gets there, he notices Ibuki’s bent head and uncharacteristic complacent smile and sits at a corner table so hidden he couldn’t even see it from the outside. 

Most of the people here are alone, too, those who look like nine to six workers and the occasional young person too lazy to cook for themself, the buzz of words subsides once Takuto’s grey mass inevitably starts to shrink, overrunned by five lines, violin key, barred c. Ibuki stands in front of him, hand on his hip, laminated sheet of paper in the other and challenges Takuto with a raised eyebrow.

“Still alive, I see,” he lays the paper on the table in front of Takuto, who doesn’t know how to answer. 

“Tsurugi told me you worked here,” he’s bordering on incoherent, but the die is cast and all the stupid things his orchestra director likes to repeat out of context hoping to sollicit his students to do better.

Ibuki has a blank look on his face, “Masaki’s friend,” Takuto amends. A glimpse, recognition mixed with annoyment, Takuto never felt closer to Ibuki.

“You know that little shit, huh,” Ibuki says, he takes a notepad that has seen better days, it looks stained with oil and waterlogged, a pencil from behind his ear, stuck inside the headband.

“So, what do you want?”

Takuto’s not hungry, he’s pretty sure he won’t be able to stomach most of the things written down with careful descriptions of the ingredients and a stylised bearded man waving on the bottom right corner. He orders the blandest thing, Ibuki jots it down and snatches the paper back, tells him it’ll be done shortly. 

Takuto nods, he spaces out until every sound rearranges itself into a specific order: the crackling of the oil in the pans mixed with the bustling of the chairs the drum line, a man periodically slurping noodles and sniffing constantly the brass section, Ibuki’s voice calling in orders in the kitchen (barely audible, but Takuto’s had practice) becomes the startling realisation that Takuto had been searching for, stranded on the beach of double jointed hands and fucking metaphorical dead white whales haunting his sleeps for almost a month. 

“Here you go,” Ibuki says, the soup is darker than he imagined, there are floating pieces of tofu and a boiled egg cut in half and Takuto is sure that it's not what he ordered, he glances at Ibuki who’s not looking at him, busy piling bowls and glasses on a tray he takes back to the kitchen. 

Takuto eats, it’s not a conscious decision but he’s been literally starving himself for a day and the hot broth trickling down his esophagus, warming his insides in the cold June night, feels like bowing in front of the ecstatic public clapping and asking for an encore. 

When Ibuki sits in front of him, Takuto has finished the ramen and is vacantly gazing at Tobitaka’s swiftness. 

“So,” the man starts, “What’s up with you?”

Takuto takes in Ibuki’s relaxed stance, Kariya’s word of the choreutic school, memories of the basketball court, his perpetuous straight back, the way he slants his shoulders forward and how he winces whenever Takuto’s wrists crack after sessions of nothing but clobbering the piano, he feels stupid and obtuse, like he’s missing the bigger picture, completely out of place.

“Why do you care?” He wants to be difficult, most customers are leaving, Tobitaka is giving wide berths at the two of them sitting in a secluded corner of his shop.

Ibuki huffs, “You look like your eyes are about to fall out,” is all he says, like it should mean something.

“I do not see how this is any of your business.”

The man lets out a frustrated groan, _good_ Takuto thinks, “Holy shit, can you— can you _please_ stop being a cunt for a fucking second?”

“I don’t have a good reason to be nice to you.”

“Fine, see if I’ll cover your sorry ass the next time one of those wrinkly goats enters the room you _definitely_ weren’t supposed to be in,” Ibuki turns his head, scrunches his nose. The careful lighting of the place makes his brown eyes look almost red. 

Takuto exhales, bites the tip of his tongue, “Thank you. For that, I mean” is his dignified response, he falters briefly when Ibuki smiles sharply, teeth showing.

“That’s better,” he says, Takuto doesn’t feel comforted. 

They look at each other, the way Ibuki shoulders retreat near his ears makes Takuto feel a bit ill.

“I need to write a six minute movement to pass the selection in order to enter my target school for composition.”

“What?”

“That’s _what’s up_ with me,” he doesn’t know why he’s telling him this since Ibuki clearly doesn’t care. 

“Is that all?”

Takuto’s eyes grow two sizes, “Do you _understand_ how musical composition works, at all? Have you—

“I know the basics—

“The _basics_ , why did I even bother in the first place,” he tries to get up but Ibuki stops him with a kick to his shins.

“Calm down, Jesus, I just thought it was something more drastic like, I dunno, a terminal illness or _blindness_ not you getting anxious because of a selection.”

“You’re so fucking stupid,” is all he can come up with, after a long minute spent staring at Ibuki.

He doesn’t even look at him when he gets up, throws some bills in his face, Ibuki jumps back but he follows him to the counter, out of the building, “You’re completely, thoroughly and ultimately fucked in the head, your brain must be maggot-ridden or, or,” he gets a heated look on his face, stops in front of the entrance of the Rairaiken and turns towards Ibuki, points an accusing finger, “You _know_ what pressure feels like, Kariya told me.”

He doesn’t seem thrilled, but he’s also weirdly calm, “Kariya told you _what_ , exactly?”

“Don’t change the subject, you don’t fucking know me—

“Shindou—

“And when I try to be _civil_ with you, you obviously do your best to ruin it,” Takuto doesn’t think he’s ever felt angrier in his life, not even when one of his cousins stained his dress shirt the day of his debut performance, and it’s all for a stupid comment a man with dyed hair made to him, Takuto studies at a conservatory, he’s heard worse from more important people. 

“What else?”

“And you’re insufferable, too! A conversation with my demented grandmother would feel less dreadful,” he bursts out, arms askew and breath coming in hard, Ibuki looks at him with the same unbothered look he had when they first met, if not a little bit pleased with himself. Takuto catches his breath, he closes his eyes.

“Bravo, maestro, truly a spectacular performance,” Ibuki makes one step forward, over the raised part in front of the door until he’s in Takuto’s space, he towers over him but in an imposing way.

“I hate you,” he whispers, fingers convulsing with the need to strangle the man standing in his face, Ibuki doesn’t look like he believes him.

“Tenma told me you were going insane.”

“Fantastic, you know Matsukaze, too,” Ibuki snorts at his dismay.

“It’s more like he forcibly introduced himself in my life.”

Takuto wants to say: _yeah, he does that_ , but Ibuki extends his hand, the fourth, maybe the fifth time that evening and asks for his phone.

“Why,” it’s not even a question.

“So I can give you my number.”

“I don’t want your number.”

“I think you do,” Ibuki looks like he’s got Takuto figured out in just a few interactions, he cocks his head. Takuto reaches inside his pocket.

“Here you go,” he says as he turns away, leaving Ibuki with the strawberry lollipop. The confused _what_ he hears delights him to no end.

  
  


* * *

“There’s a recital next weekend, you coming?” Takuto glances away from his notes, there’s Tenma fidgeting in front of him, the clarinet already tucked away and a light jacket that looks like it’s Tsurugi’s draped over his shoulders, almost an afterthought. 

“Opera?”

Tenma shakes his head, “No, a chamber orchestra, mostly Russian, I think. I know you like Glinka, so,” like is an euphemism for love steering into obsession; he hands him two pink tickets, the ones the secretaryship of the conservatory hands out like they’re candies. 

“Kirino and Masaki are coming, so is Hikaru, you know him right?” before Takuto can answer he continues, “I tried to ask Kyousuke if his brother wanted to come but, but you know how he is. So I thought, it’d be nice if you could ask, I mean it’s up to you, of course, but I think he would appreciate it. Ibuki, uhm. You could invite Ibuki.”

Takuto has had experience with the farfetched speech pattern Tenma falls back into whenever he’s nervous and has to handle a pesky situation that doesn’t involve music all by himself, he’s extremely candid, Takuto would laugh if he was another person.

“I’m not asking Ibuki to come to a recital, Tenma,” he closes his copybook and marches out of the room, Tenma following him like a shadow.

“It— it was just a suggestion, you don’t have to do it! But Masaki told me he—

“I don’t care what Kariya told you, stop meddling with other people’s business.”

“About that—

“What,” Takuto turns, Tenma’s whole face turning purple under his glare, they’re in the middle of the main corridor, most of the students are leaving, he spots Ranmaru and Taichi walking out of the orchestra room.

In one breath Tenma says, “I’m sorry about last week, it’s just that we’re worried for you and no one can really get _through_ you so I told him because I thought you liked him but I stepped out of line, I’m sorry, really.”

The conservatory, the choreutical school, they’re often incestuos scenes, no one really talks with other people outside of the pre-formed, tight groups of friends, inglobations are rare, but they occur. It’s something completely different than actual life, it shields you and thinking that something as stress inducing as this is a protected environment makes people beg their doctors for anxiolytics. They spend the rest of their short, musical life as isolated islands not connected with each other, except that Matsukaze Tenma is a wonder of a boy and he collects lost souls like a psychopomp. 

Takuto never thought he would witness the brave, dying swan assembling broken people under its wing as it shouts its last song, but here is Tenma, wringing hands and begging for forgiveness. It’s a metaphor that doesn’t work: Tenma’s not a swan, even though he honks like one, he doesn’t even play classical most of the time and he definitely isn’t dying, but he stretches his floppy hands out with only one purpose in mind. 

Takuto holds his breath for three seconds before shaking his head, “It’s fine, you did the right thing. Still, I don’t think Ibuki will enjoy two hours of Russian orchestra,” he ignores the painful throb inside his chest, relegates it to the cliff along with Prometheus and his damned discovery. 

Tenma grabs the handle of his clarinet bag with vigour, “Masaki told me he did ballet,” like that explains anything. Dread pervades his body.

“Have you been stalking him?”

“No! No, we just. We asked around, please, please,” his hands conjoin in prayer, “Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not _mad_ , Tenma, but it’s rude to snoop around—

“I know, we’re very sorry,” pluralis maiestatis, like he’s the whole collectiveness of his friends. The brunette hands him the tickets, again, “You don’t have to ask him, I’m sorry if I sounded… I dunno, but they’re still yours, I’ll go, now” he waves, awkwardly, and leaves Takuto to his madness. Tenma’s feet bounce slightly when he walks, he’s a coiled spring just waiting for the occasional nudge, ready to jump at your face with encouraging words, Shindou doesn’t understand how blood still flows inside his body.

Sighing, he enters the tiny room in the auditorium, undresses the piano and doesn’t start trying to compose right away, unlike most nights, Takuto eagerly waits for Ibuki’s snorts and jabs, he’s softly playing Dvorak’s romance, the piano alone doesn’t really do it justice, but Takuto needs to clear his mind. He finishes the first voice, he wishes Tsurugi was there to help him, his pensive silences offer great comfort whenever his thoughts derail on the despondent side of things.

“That sounds depressing,” Ibuki interrupts. Takuto only raises his arms, the taller one is bolder during the night, he closes the door behind him, turns on the other sets of flickering lights, sits next to him on the bench and observes Takuto’s hands, cleaning trolley forgotten. 

“It’s a romance, it’s supposed to be sentimental,” Takuto mutters, crescendo and then a sharp, he’s not really paying attention. 

“I fucking know Dvorak, and you managed to make him sound depressed.”

“Don’t curse,” he presses more hardly, jumps two keys, moves so that his hair shields his profile, “Besides, he probably _was_ depressed.”

“He was crazy, the guy liked to keep pigeons as pets.”

There is silence in the place where the violin voice should have been, Takuto ends up with messing the tempo, speeding the notes up, just for the sake of sounding _less depressed_. 

“So it’s true, Kariya wasn’t lying when he said you went to school with him,” Takuto hands rest on his lap.

Ibuki shrugs, “I dropped out like four years ago,” he tentatively puts his fingers on the keyboard, starts with what Takuto recognises as Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto, Shindou’s surprised he has the skill to remember it by heart, Ibuki stops before the scale, Takuto continues it for him.

“Why?”

The man smiles sardonically, “Why do you care?” Takuto shifts the harmonic progression, hoping Rachmaninov’s ghost isn’t cursing at him. He finishes abruptly, with a flourish, the first movement lasts seventeen minutes and he doesn’t care for it, once in his life the piano is not his first priority.

He turns, Ibuki sits straight, Takuto looks at his thighs in a moment of weakness, quickly glances away before Ibuki can act smug about it. 

“For the same reasons you’re balding, I guess,” he shifts uncomfortably, the bench is not low enough for his legs to sit snugly under the piano. 

“Also, I got into a fight and I was expelled, so,” he clicks his tongue against the roof of the mouth, “Turns out several years of ballet do wonder for your leg muscles, I got accepted in a sports program at another school. Basketball just stuck with it, I’m working odd hours to keep up with the rent.” 

Takuto’s mouth hangs half-opened, Ibuki snorts when he sees him, “I don’t know what that dumbass told you, but I’m not terribly injured or anything.”

“Would you like to come to a recital. With me. And other— other people?”

“A recital?” 

“Yeah, Russian composers. Next weekend.”

“Is it going to sound as depressed as your Dvorak?”

Takuto inclines his head, “I mean, probably.”

“I’ll ask my boss what I can do.”

* * *

The first thing Ibuki does after the crowd stops clapping is taking off the suit jacket, Takuto pretends it doesn’t hurt his sensibility. He’s talking with Kariya, who’s looking atypically shy in front of him, probably embarrassed by their sheer size difference and the meddling he and Tenma previously did. 

“He seems nice,” says Ranmaru, stepping in from behind. He pushes the reading glasses on his nose a bit further.

“He’s a nuisance,” Takuto shifts his weight, two hours of sitting with a craned neck have numbed his legs and his lower back. Ranmaru snorts at waves at Sangoku, walking away from the city’s auditorium. 

The camaraderie of the conservatory works like this, with codependent friendships and unhealthy attachments to those that seem like they won’t gut you for the place you hold, those who will challenge you but not question your worth after every step you take, everything considered Takuto has had it easy. Ranmaru, Tenma, even Kyousuke and the dark horse he brought himself after, the forever bent fingers of his brother and his refusal to play violin. Kariya, too, Hikaru and their friends from the choreutical school merging into a confused, often morose bramble of support and cynical remarks, the breakdowns have been also kept mostly at bay, if he doesn’t count the current, disheartening moment his creativity is stuck in. Takuto turns to where Ranmaru is looking.

In the middle of his friends, Ibuki.

He stands out like an oboe in a section full of clarinets: he obviously is in the right place, looks about like anyone else does, but he speaks differently, can disguise his mannerisms and the way he acts to an untrained eye but to Takuto, he’s so inherently different he doesn’t have to pose the question in the first place. He was part of this incredibly secluded world, too, made of salty tears and continuous leaps of faith, of endless hours spent muffling curses at teachers and coursemates. Shindou thinks about the way he started sitting closer to him each night, June merging into July, the tentative way he replicated the first five bars of a sad Czech sonata and gulps so hard the saliva gets stuck where the collet of his shirt closes around his throat.

“I’m sure he thinks of you the same way,” Ranmaru interrupts.

“W-what?”

“That you’re a nuisance?” he looks uncertain, doubtful whether he heard something wrong.

 _Right_ , Takuto mutters, Ranmaru seems concerned, he should be seeing that his stomach is full of pests gnawing at his insides whenever he looks at Ibuki Munemasa and his detestable face. 

Ibuki turns to him, then, raising his eyebrows. His hair is combed back, it looks less soft but tidier, Shindou dangerously plunges into a pool of gooey sensations, builds a cenotaph to his mental stability once Ibuki swaggers closer to him, jaw set.

“Was it depressing?” Takuto raises his chin, were they part of a bigger, slightly more comical theatrical act they would be in the middle of a bull’s eye, he guesses an andante, then a calando. Turning into a sostenuto, perhaps.

Ibuki’s expression is filled with mirth, the jacket hung from his elbow and that’s a familiar sight, only now they’re a mirror picture of each other. 

“I was about to fall asleep in the first half, but Shostakovich is Shostakovich,” he says carelessly, a person bumps into him and they get closer.

“So?”

Ibuki kisses his teeth, a funny grimace on his mouth, “So, I enjoyed it.”

Incredibly enough, Kariya was right, Shindou scoffs, “Really?”

“Is that so difficult to believe?” 

Takuto is looking at him like Ibuki is Jupiter and he feels very close to the asteroid belt threatening to destroy the Earth, Ranmaru and the others are talking animatedly, Tenma waves at Takuto, calling them over.

“We’re going over to Kyousuke’s, if you want to join us,” he smiles, that’ll mean that they probably will end up getting wasted over disgustingly sweet liquor and start an improv session where Kariya will pretend to be Esmeralda even though he majored in contemporary. 

“Shindou and I have other plans, actually,” Ibuki says, Takuto turns his head, almost touching the other’s shoulders.

He wants to ask, maybe even protest, Ibuki takes his wrist and wishes a nice evening to the others, Takuto hears Kariya cackle and he’s sure to throw a meaningful look in his direction, one that shuts him down immediately. 

“What are you doing?” Ibuki is not really dragging him, his hand on his arm is loose enough that Takuto can shake it off if he really wanted to. It’s calloused, though, rough and warm and Takuto is so deeply stuck inside the oozy liquid of the evening that it doesn’t come to mind to simply stop in his tracks. 

“It’s my turn, now,” is all Ibuki says, they walk under the street lights, there are few cars passing without noticing them. Other people are out, understandably, it’s eleven in the evening of a summer’s Saturday, they’re dressed with lighter clothes, some of them even flashier than the pair of them and their suits. Ibuki never lets go, Takuto is a step behind, their arms tensed trying to remain in contact with each other. 

“Are you planning on killing me?”

“Depends,” the streets are starting to look familiar, the unlit Rairaiken showing up, its shutters only halfway opened, Takuto jogs a little bit to stand next to Ibuki who’s crouching down, sliding into the shop.

“Are you sure you can do this?” Takuto follows him, still. Tobitaka is still inside, there’s another man in a suit and he throws Ibuki a knowing look.

“So there was a reason, after all,” the cook says, the man sitting at the counter smiles, Ibuki blushes and Takuto, by proxy, feels the ground under his feet wobble dangerously. 

“Don’t make a mess,” Tobitaka says offhandedly, Takuto knows Kariya will be the first one to know of this— this thing that is currently taking place, Ibuki leads him in the back, it’s not big and there’s a plastic table, like the ones people put in their gardens, he rolls the sleeves of his shirt and when Takuto just stands there, in the middle of the room, he nods towards the chairs.

“What can I say, Soviet composers make me hungry,” he puts two bowls on the table, Takuto takes off his jacket, too, never once stops looking at the other.

“It’s eleven p.m.”

“Is that your only objection?” Ibuki starts to spoon broth into his mouth, it should look childish and unattractive.

“Yes— no, what?”

Ibuki puts down the spoon and the chopsticks, he has the expression of a very tired kindergarten teacher trying to explain to their children why they can’t eat glue. 

“You sure as hell weren’t going to do anything about— _this_ ,” he gestures at him with a careless hand that looks ready to slap, “So I took the initiative.”

“What counts as _this_?” he mimics the gesture.

“Oh please, you mean to tell me you invite all your friends to a fucking soirée?” Takuto wants to say _actually, yes_ but Ibuki interrupts him with a pained look, “Don’t answer, I know you’re all freaks in there, I was one of you, too.”

He breathes in, “What I mean to say is, I decided your awkward flirting was too awful to bear and I don’t want you to think I only smell of bleach or danshi, it’s really for the best, dude.”

“Dude,” Takuto repeats.

“Whatever, do you want this to be a date?” Ibuki’s eyes are brutally honest, he’s serious and not frowning for once, the hair just now trying to escape the grip of the gel and, Takuto apprehensively admits, he’s very endearing.

“I— a date?”

“You sure are slow for someone who has the reputation of a genius, yes, a date. If you don’t, just say it and I won’t bother you anymore,” Takuto thinks it’s a bit more complicated than that, he breathes in.

Ibuki under the artificial light looks as bright and indecent as a burning star, he has the personality of a rabid dog, sometimes, Takuto doesn’t remember a time when someone dared to be as bold as Ibuki is to him, he makes fun of him and his hands are so big they could easily reach two octaves, Takuto brings the left palm to his mouth to stop the heinous words that are building the pressure behind his teeth, under his tongue. 

Takuto can hear the low hum of a washing machine melting inside his frontal lobe, a tiny, hysterical laugh breaks the unstable dam he tried to create with his hand. Ibuki, reasonably, doesn’t look exactly elated.

“No, wait, yes. Yes, I would like,” he scrambles in agitation, almost overbalancing the bowls, still full of hot liquid, “I would like this to be a date.”

“Good,” Ibuki replies, “Good,” a beatific smile on his face, “This is a date, then.”

“It’s a date,” Shindou Takuto says, and after two months spent yearning and chasing a deep-ocean monster, there is something close to peace in his heart. 

  
  


* * *

“Have you ever danced _en pointe_?” Takuto asks, Munemasa is throwing a beach volleyball in the basket, the sun is beating down hard but the trees and the buildings shield them from most of the rays. It’s still hot, though, Takuto is wearing shorts and his pale legs look almost alien in the middle of all the people there. Matatagi, one of Munemasa’s closest friends, laughs through his nose after catching the ball and passing it back to Ibuki.

“Not really, I tried once in school but my feet were too big for the girls’ shoes,” he mutters, bouncing slightly on his feet, calculating the trajectory of the next throw.

“That’s a shame,” Takuto looks down at the music book, he’s been writing incessantly ever since the night after Ibuki took him to eat in the badly lit kitchen of the Rairaiken, Tenma smiled cheerfully when he told him of the date, admitting that his best performances were done when thinking of Tsurugi.

Takuto gagged a bit, he’s not really charmed by the idea of love as the Aristotelian prime mover of all things but glancing at Munemasa’s back (and that’s another thought, the slow but constant transition from Ibuki to Munemasa, Takuto feels slightly deranged), adding other pauses and another bar, more poignant than the first, the big Leviathan he was hunting for finally bit the hook. 

“Yeah, Masa, that’s a shame,” Matatagi parrots, Takuto is not really sure Matatagi likes him, Munemasa told him he was just like that, distracted he scribbles over the last staff of the page, closes the book. There isn’t really a point in trying to compose if he can’t try it out on the piano. 

“Shut up, dickhead,” Munemasa aims the ball to Matatagi’s head, who is able to dodge only because he’s fast as a weasel. 

Takuto smiles at them when they start to roughhouse, he’s not used to this type of warm affection, his mother was never the type to hug, she liked to comb through his hair, he always kept it long for that reason. Munemasa also likes it, he got weirdly fixated on braiding it whenever they spend the night together, not just at the conservatory. 

“Can you come to mine later, if you don’t have to work?” he asks, a gust of wind dries the sweat on his arms and it makes him shiver.

Munemasa stops trying to strangle Matatagi and walks across the basketball court to stand in front of Takuto, “Sure, everything okay?”

Takuto nods, takes the offered hand and Munemasa is lifting him up, he takes him by surprise when instead of leaving him, he throws them into an unsteady pirouette.

“You two are disgusting,” Matatagi says, shaking his head, Ibuki just sticks his tongue out, he pats Takuto on the back and lets him go, he comes with him until the open metal gates.

“I’ll see you later, then,” he slouches casually, Takuto rolls his eyes because he always tries to appear cooler than he is, when in fact he saw him cry after the first Ice Age movie.

Takuto walks home alone, his apartment feels less stuffy only thanks to the fan he left on when he went outside, the cats are sleeping on the windowsill, probably the only living beings actively enjoying the sun. He pats Aria on the flank as he reaches for his grand piano, it takes up most of his living room, there’s hardly space for a couch so whenever Munemasa visits he always sits on the ground, Takuto has an armchair but thinking of sharing it with the mid-July heat scares them both. 

Taking the hand cream, opening the music book, pencil at hand, Takuto glares at the keys until they reorganise themselves into a different order, it’s quite absurd considering they all look the same, but he feels the difference, hears it resonating behind his eyes, luxuriating in the poignant, short notes he presses. 

His thumb almost never lifts, the pinky points to the base, right hand harmonising. It’s stupidly simple, Takuto slows down, readjusts himself on the bench and starts again, annotates every single variation of the same, stomach-searing soporific symphony he’s trying to carve out from the walls of his ventricles until it begins to sound like the manic laugh of a dying dog. 

Ibuki rings the doorbell when Takuto decides his hands need a pause, the batteries of the thing are almost dead, or maybe it’s a wiring problem, he never bothered to fix it, and it plays a distorted thrill that lowers incredibly towards the end.

“I need you to listen to this,” he opens the door, Munemasa has a bag with take out, it smells like fried rice. 

“Eat, first,” he says, making his way to the tiny kitchenette in Takuto’s apartment, “then we’ll see.”

* * *

Munemasa is silent, it’s atrocious and maddening, Takuto thinks he’s very close to burn his whole apartment down. 

“So?”

The other shrugs, he’s leafing through the music book with careful eyes, Takuto knows he can read music, six minutes on piano means a whole copybook of mistakes and almost-tears. 

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Is it good? Did it make you want to rip your ears off?” he prompts, Munemasa is stubbornly pensive.

“It’s good, but you already knew that,” he’s turning his back, making his way to where they left their plates, Takuto almost snorted his rice trying to eat it as fast as possible. 

He feels a surge of gutless fear inside his throat, he watches the piano in the flickering light of the apartment.

“Play it again,” Munemasa says, Takuto straightens his back, and repeats it.

* * *

“Again,” whispers against his back.

Takuto’s hands clamp down the keyboard, the first note sounds like the head of a spear in his chest. 

* * *

  
  


July becomes August with the same lethargic languidness of a caterpillar turning butterfly, Takuto wakes up in a puddle of sweat so he thinks the comparison is fitting enough. He goes to the conservatory to visit his friends, and doesn't spend as much time in the room under the auditorium because whenever he does, Munemasa shows up and corners him with the promises of endless kisses. His contract ends up the second week of the month and they risked getting caught one too many times to be comfortable there. Besides, he has a perfectly fine twin-size bed in his apartment

Tenma threw him a thumbs up, once, passing in the corridors, he’s busy with the Summer showcase and they rarely talk with each other but Takuto greatly appreciates his support, blinding as it is. 

His mother interrupts the euphoric daze he’s been living through with a call one evening, when he’s busy in the convenience store at the corner of his street with Munemasa, looking for ice creams and overpriced frozen treats to keep the heat at bay. 

“Hello?” Ibuki puts a box of nothing but mint popsicles in the plastic basket at their feet, Takuto is a bit disgusted.

“Hello, Takuto,” his mother says, “I hope you haven’t forgotten that we’ll be expecting news from you,” Takuto actually did forget about it, but he won’t say that to his mother.

Munemasa has a questioning look on his face, Takuto shakes his head and says: of course, I’ll call you, they talk more about his father and how the company’s going, he hangs up after a hasty goodbye.

“That bad, huh,” Munemasa takes the bag from him after Takuto has paid, starts automatically walking to his apartment.

“I just wish she could— stop acting so—

“Alright, listen,” Takuto unlocks the door and Munemasa immediately takes one mint popsicle for himself, laying the remaining boxes into the freezer, “You doin’ this for yourself or for you mother?”

“Myself, obviously, what are—

“Then—

“Oh my God, can you stop interrupting me?”

Munemasa sits on the armchair, spreads his legs and waits a few seconds before continuing, “Anyway,” Takuto huffs, but he drops in front of him, on the dirty floor, “if you’re doing this for _yourself_ then stop thinking about her and her money, so what she stops paying your tuition, it’s not like you can’t find a job. Do you have any idea of what a name like yours can do on a curriculum?”

Takuto looks at him, licking clean his nasty minty abomination, sitting like he owns the place and he thinks: he does, he slithered under his skin even though he sometimes has the grace of a seal out of the water. Munemasa leaves scorching kisses on the nape of his neck whenever they wake up together, washes his teeth like he’s trying to scrape the bottom of a boat. He makes fun of him with Matatagi, who definitely doesn’t like him, plays basketball with his little brothers. 

Munemasa works two jobs just to pay rent and the bills, he listens to his shouts in the middle of the night when he messes the composition.

Takuto, for the first time after ten years, cracks his knuckles and asks to be carried to sleep. 

* * *

  
  


The first day of September Takuto wakes up tangled inside a cocoon of sheets and Munemasa’s arms, his frankly too heavy legs trapping him on the bed. It’s still hot, he shoves the man away and goes to take a shower trying to get rid of the perennial smell of _boy_ , when he comes back, a pair of boxers the only thing he could fit on his wet body, he sees the other awake, scrolling through his phone. 

He smiles at him, a bit groggy with sleep, still.

"Play me something else," Munemasa says as if Takuto is his personal minstrel, the sheets fall over his waist, draping like he's a Canovian marble, his chest bare, somewhere during the night he discarded the shirt. It would feel hopelessly decadent if Munemasa didn't sweat all over him like a pig, Takuto felt like an egg on a poorly oiled pan. 

"What do you want me to play?" he sits on the bench in front of the keyboard he has in his room, tying his hair with a spare hairband laying around, he's never touched a piano in only his underwear, Takuto thinks Munemasa must have some sort of weird fetish for poorly dressed composers. 

"Anything but that Russian asshole you drool after," Munemasa lifts his torso, bends his elbow so that his hand supports his head and looks fondly at him, he grins, licks his lips, Takuto's feet itch and that's the strangest reaction his body ever manifested but the other is a weird man so he guesses it's only fair. 

"What about Chopin?" he tries for a Nocturne but Munemasa shakes his head.

"That's boring," Takuto should stop getting surprised by Munemasa's remarks "Hey," he gets up, shaking away the linen sheet and covering Aria, who was sleeping soundly at his feet, he gets closer. Takuto glances at the darker trail of hairs that starts at his belly button, dipping inside the basketball shorts he wore as pyjamas, "Do you know how to play that Barbie song?"

"Excuse me?"

He sits next to him, draping most of his sticky weight on Takuto's shoulder, "Yeah, from the movie with the dancing princesses, man I was obsessed with that one," his fingers on the keyboard are clumsy, Takuto doesn't understand how he could pull off Rachmaninov but not a song from a children's cartoon. 

"I don't know the song," Takuto says, frowning.

“Really? Never had the boys calling you a homo for liking it?” the notes Masa is playing are confused and too slow for him to make sense, he gets up. 

"Where you goin'?" Ibuki doesn't raise his eyes, still focused on the keyboard. 

"I'm googling it," the apartment is tiny enough that he doesn't have to scream to be heard, he unplugs his computer and brings it back to the bedroom, where Munemasa is looking at him, blushing furiously. 

"Are you alright?" it's an empty question because Ibuki doesn't answer.

Takuto sits on the bed, closes several useless tabs and searches for the song the man was talking about, all the while the other just oogles at him, back askew. 

Takuto bends a leg, brings his chin forward so that it settles on his knee and starts counting the beats, he raises his head once, when Munemasa finally comes back to bed, the mattress dipping under his body, creating a basin that determines the physics law of attraction and all the things Takuto couldn’t be bothered to remember in high school. 

"Did you really— are you actually going to play it for me?" he asks in disbelief, after a few seconds, the song finishes and Takuto has to admit that it _is_ a nice song, he searches for a piano adaptation.

Shrugging he says, "Why not? Didn't you want it?" he feels more than sees Munemasa's hot breath on his bicep, the soft tufts of hair tickling the side of his neck. 

Munemasa sneaks one hand over his shoulders, the other pinches his cheeks between thumb and middle finger until Takuto looks like a fish and turns towards him, puckered lips and frowning, questioning brows. Munemasa kisses him soundly, a bit wetly, a great _smack_ resonating after their lips detach. 

His eyes are half closed, full of soft exasperation, he's smiling at him with what Takuto thinks is the most frightening look he's ever seen on a human being. 

Munemasa's hand falls, clasps down on his neck, Takuto has the right mind to set the computer to the side before he's toppled over by that oaf of a man; they roll until Takuto's head knocks over the flat pillow, laughing and cackling like children tossed away by the sea, Munemasa is eager like a puppy, leaves tiny kisses all over his face and Takuto feels like he's in the sunniest spot of the world, bright boy and cheerful happiness in his ears. When Ibuki starts tickling him he throws a kick at his side, begs him to stop.

"Holy shit, I think I might be in love with you," is the breathless answer after the sixth delightful giggle.

Shindou's whole neural system shuts down, a low buzzing that he interprets as his body's last blood rush to his brain occupying most of his thoughts.

"Are you—

"I'm, like, ninety percent serious, right now. Must be the fact that your room is an oven."

"Is— Is all of this because of a fucking Barbie song?"

"Might as well, yeah— I mean," Ibuki's hands smoothe out his fringe, softly grab his hair tie and it slips away with a bit of labour, his thumbs trace slow circles over his temples. Takuto looks up at him and he sees the acne scars on his cheeks, a nose slightly crooked, full lips and the dark roots showing up in the middle of his messy head; his legs are going numb, his stomach has completely emptied itself and he's pretty sure it'll start groaning any second from now so he moves his hands, too. 

They smell like thyme, like they always do, the cream he buys from a Swiss company in bulk, they settle on Ibuki's back, under his shoulder blades. When he shifts he can feel the muscles under his palms. 

Takuto remembers he’s once heard the story of a Bosnian cellist play inside a bombed cathedral, twenty-two consecutive days, an adagio, to remember the dead, it’s such a confusing tiny thought, Takuto is paralysed. 

His fingers spasm over Munemasa’s tense ligaments, he’s holding himself up and his biceps are stiff, the knob of his elbows jutting out like a stumbling block, his belly touches Takuto’s and he’s in front of a sacred place desecrated by war, he feels so blasphemous for that thought alone he sobs.

“No, no,” Munemasa kindly shushes him, “It’s okay, I— it was dumb of me, sorry, it’s okay,” he drops down, like a weighted blanket. Takuto violently shakes his head.

“It’s _not_ okay, I— it’s not like I don’t feel the same,” Munemasa’s hands are still in his hair, combing through it with care, detangling the knots the night left with her, they’re so close to each other Takuto doesn’t know who’s inhaling. 

“Well, then that’s settled, no?” 

Why is everything so easy for him, Takuto will never understand. 

“I should be able to _tell_ you these things,” he complains, tears no longer a threat. Munemasa snorts, licks at his cheek like he’s a wild animal and Takuto cringes back.

“You were googling a, _quote_ , fucking Barbie song, just because I asked, I think that counts as telling me,” Ibuki speaks it into his skin, humid breath joining with the rising temperature of Takuto’s exposed bedroom. They’re almost glued together and it should be disgusting but it isn’t, Takuto opens his eyes when Munemasa starts nosing at his jawline and he realises his hands never left the other’s arms. 

“I’ll tell you. One day.”

“Is that a threat?”

Takuto smiles at the ceiling, white paint and a dusty light bulb he probably needs to at least clean, the window is closed and the walls are bare, it really does feel like an oven.

“Might as well be.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


Munemasa is waiting in front of the conservatory, light jacket and a pensive expression, Takuto goes straight to him, his hands are shaking so hard he needs to sit down and put them between his thighs to make them stop.

“How’d it go?” 

Takuto licks his lips, raises one shoulder and scratches his ear with it, Munemasa crouches down in front of him, “Did they tell you anything?”

“No.”

“No? Like, nothing at all?”

Takuto’s smile blooms big, his cheeks hurt and Munemasa shields him from the sun, he has found another job at a sportswear shop and they force him into a uniform that he hates, green and black, it’s poking from under the denim jacket, when he takes Takuto’s hands and warms them in his, big. The hands of a failed pianist.

“Nothing at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> the cellist Shindou mentions at a certain point is Vedran Smailović, you might know him as the cellist of Sarajevo. Also, I wrote this while listening to the soundtrack of the movie "Goodbye, Lenin", it's plausible that what Takuto composed is something off of that! lol
> 
> (you can talk to me on [tumblr](https://creamation.tumblr.com/) or [twitter ](https://twitter.com/mensmentis))


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